Crypto exchanges and businesses should definitely consider moving offshore to places like Cayman or Seychelles

Hey everyone, if you're running a brokerage or any money-related business, seriously consider relocating offshore and just accepting crypto deposits. The regulatory environment in the US and EU, not to mention India, is brutal. Those governments are super corrupt and it's just getting worse. The way the US and EU handle crypto regulation is a nightmare. They want to control it, tax it, and keep it concentrated in the hands of the rich. The real future of financial freedom and connecting with an international community lies in bitcoin, which isn't about nationalism or isolationism. We need to look toward international business and tax havens. Countries like those in the Caribbean, and even lesser-known places like Georgia and Montenegro, should definitely be on your radar. Let's stop playing by the old rules and use international business laws to our advantage. Go where you're gonna be treated right.

I think the two-tiered system we're seeing will become more entrenched. On one side, you'll have your regulated institutional markets and highly compliant spot exchanges like Coinbase, Bitflyer and Gemini. On the other side, you'll have your KYC-avoiding platforms that only work with cryptocurrency. Hopefully services like BitMEX and Binance can manage to keep up the good fight until we have more robust decentralized solutions for anonymous trading.

The thing is, even if we push for non-regulated, KYC-avoiding exchanges, it would only be a matter of time before regulatory pressure hits them no matter how 'free' they are from such constraints. Sure they can always be free from taxation, the usual regulation stuff etc. but the countries they would be servicing, especially people of these countries would be bound by their law and would not be able to use these services freely (see Binance v US). Most governments are pushing for market isolation and does not like the idea of their citizens transacting with international/off-shore exchanges (talk about globalization lol). We're in strange times: backwards development on everything and it's just a shame. I just hope that a proper DEX would come out soon and avoid regulations like a champ. People will find a way, but the road would be hard that's for sure.

Bisq is proper but i have been unable to use it in my Tor banned country. I actually made tor work standalone, but Bisq has to bundle their own and somehow doesn't pick the needed configuration. It's such a shame Bisq cannot be told to use your system tor instead of the one they bundle... If Tor is not banned in your country yet, you should be able to use it.

we've already been in that situation for years. we can either keep giving the finger to governments/multinational organizations like FATF and support exchanges that do the same.....or we can bend over and let them fuck us---KYC, burdensome transaction reporting and proving source of funds, giving the government a huge databank to analyze our wallets and financial activities. i don't see any other options.

Tor is the ideal mindset. DEX should not only integrate with Tor they should function like Tor. Rather than having companies with addresses, just as Bisq has rightly avoided, the exchanges should focus on being opensource software with nodes that run just like miner rigs. Recently coincenter policy think tank contested the british government over its implied desire to force kyc on open source developers, miners, node runners, end users, wallet providers, as the british made it clear they were flirting with the idea of putting backdoors in software for wallets/ Coincenter has argued that it is unconsitutional and would be unconstitutional to backdoor things, at least with the united states constitution. FinCen only recognizes custodians and money transmitters and doesn't consider the end users I mentioned to be money transmitter and FATF parroted FinCen. The governments want to be able to ban encrypted messages, to ban and backdoor and surveil the blockchain software and miners and end users. Satoshi never would have agreed. They would never have allowed Satoshi to do what he did anonymously. They cannot be allowed to compel kyc onto software providers and miners, and this is exactly why software should be released anonymously just like bitcoin.

One disadvantage that I am seeing for users here - if all crypto exchanges will do this move, the proliferation of scam exchanges will increase in number. Since the regulation is not tight, every business can find a turn around to exit from their users. It is only a matter of time for them when to disappear from the trading market.

Binance has already announced that KYC will be mandatory for the users from the United States and they are working to create a separate trading platform for the American users. Users from other regions don't have to undergo KYC as of now, but as the governments and the FATF get increasingly strict with their proceedings, I believe that it is just a matter of time before KYC is made mandatory for everyone. Same goes for BitMEX as well. They can't challenge the feds. We all know what happened to BTC-e, after they did something similar.

the situation is fundamentally different with a crypto-only platform. when BTC-E went down, they lost access to most of their fiat funds held with banks and third party payment processors. the losses were limited to fiat money. and one of the two charges was for unlicensed (fiat) money transmission. in spite of the feds mirroring their servers for 6+ months, BTC-E retained full control of all crypto funds, which they used to partially refund users and resume services under a new brand. this is the context we're talking about. with no customer funds held in bank accounts, and with properly distributed servers, the feds may be able to do little more than seize the domains of services that don't comply. tbh i wonder if the USA is interested in that because it will just make them look weak and impotent.

This can be the reason why Binance moved its main headquarter operation to Malta to avoid many inherent problems when dealing with governments which are not really open to the idea of the blockchain and cryptocurrency. However, since they are doing business, they are establishing special operations in different markets and in USA the operation is legal and compliant according to the laws of the land. An exchange can based itself in offshore location however if it is accepting business from citizens of specific countries it still has to follow approved and implemented procedures otherwise the legal maneuvering of a specific country can still fall on it. Though others can view many developments on this front as negative, I prefer to view all of these as procedural matters since this industry is still fairly new but as time goes on and things are evolving we can witness a better stance from many governments.

yes basically everything that you want to get (profit) certainly must have a risk. Whereas the risk here is here. They say "give us your identity or we don't give you a chance"

They definitely should move to friendlier jurisdictions, but it would probably still be better if they're well distributed. If they all flocked to a country or two, a few unfavorable bills might be able to move the market on their own. Not a very ideal outcome. This has always been true though, and there will always be exchanges which prefer abiding by regulations as there are a lot of people in that market. Even exchanges which avoid regulations can be reputable, so there's no need for users to settle for no-name ones.

Regulated exchanges fit a purpose in Bitcoin too, because there are a high percentage of Bitcoin users that wants to use Bitcoin in a "legal" environment and these regulated exchanges fill that need for them. Imagine having a business and wanting to adopt Bitcoin as a legal payment option and having to work through a unregulated <illegal> exchange and then explaining that to the IRS or your local tax authority at the end of each tax year.   Luckily for us, some of these exchanges have picked up on what direction governments are going towards with these regulations and they acted preemptively and moved their operations to a "Bitcoin-friendly" jurisdiction or they go the decentralized route.

Long-term it would be better if bigger exchanges, the ones with more resources at least, put a portion of their earnings and spent it on lobbying to pass more favourable laws and regulations. It's easier to pressure smaller countries to change their ways to avoid becoming international banking pariahs. Why would the tax office care you have received a bank transfer from an 'unregulated' exchange? As long as they got their money they shouldn't complain.

Even though KYC will be mandatory someday, I don't think all must do KYC. As in Bittrex, it applies KYC to customers who have a transaction value of more than $ 1,000. And I don't think all governments will enforce regulations like this, this is too pushy because crypto itself was created for privacy.

the bigger exchanges---particularly fiat gateways---are gonna feel strong pressure to comply with FATF standards. the most valuable markets to them are g20 countries who have already pledged to apply these standards. on top of that, they can't risk becoming blacklisted by banks. there will always be smaller exchanges that dodge the rules, but the big players like binance and bitfinex are gonna cave in IMO. btw, bittrex has had mandatory KYC for a while now. unverified accounts can't withdraw and you can't register a basic account anymore.